If you don't experiment, you don't learn.

I come home from 2 days…count them, two days….in Denver to find my corn seedlings have been dug up and destroyed. I thought the squirrels only ate the seeds, which is why I did what you are not supposed to do…..transplant corn seedlings. I started 20 corn in the greenhouse and planted them in the garden last Friday. I swear, they grew 2 inches in two days. I figured they were very happy. Then I had to go Denver on Sunday. Came home tonight, to discover them dug up and only one left. ….

sad face.

You can’t have just one corn, they need to cross-pollinate; you need to plant a block of them so you can have corn cobs. I will try again, this time I will put netting down. I just don’t think they will be knee-high to an elephant by 4th of July…..

A friend suggested “baby electric fencing” a lower voltage electric fence that won’t kill them, just knock them for a loop. I just can’t quite figure out how to set it up? Do you run the wire next to the seedlings? Do you make a little box around the whole area? Squirrels are agile and arial little creatures and there is a tree overhead. They might just parachute into the garden rendering a fence line in-effective…unless you run wire over the seedlings too. That might be bad for my health. I don’t know if it is worth it for 20 plants.

I shouldn’t have fed them leetle furry-rat-varmints this winter and then stopped feeding them when the weather got warm. They are taking revenge. My book on how to deal with squirrels should be arriving soon. Then I will take re-revenge.

In other news, my squish is doing well. I am growing both winter and summer squish. The summer squish is the ones doing well, the winter squish hasn’t shown heads up (or should I say leaves up) yet. I am trying to start some Acorn and Butternut squish in the greenhouse, but they didn’t get watered when I was in the big city. They got pretty dry in there. We shall see.

My Egyptian Walking Onion is doing great! We have had the leaves…tubes…green things growing str8 up without any bulbettes on them, for dinner several nights in a row. They have a strong flavor and are great both raw and fried. Thanks to my friend Erica, who is a fantastic, under-appreciated librarian, for giving me a start.

No lettuce or Swiss Chard yet. Spinach and carrots are starting to show. The sugar aints are eating my Cabbage and Brussels Sprouts. I’ve lost three plants over the last week. I must away to the garden shop and buy diama……diamota……buy that white earth stuff that you sprinkle around plants to keep them safe. Last year I had to dig the aints up to convince them to leave, but they showed themselves before I planted anything last spring. So, this year, I am going to have to resort to other methods. I don’t want my Brassica’s covered in Aphids. Those 2,000 ladybirds I wee-weased are gone to parts unknown. Oh, Bob, I hardly knew ye….. Hey, Bob is a lot easier to remember than 2,000 names. Don’t judge.

When my eldest was a small, he was fascinated by ants. He conducted various experiments on them all the while saying, “Aint, Aint! very pointedly. Most of the ants didn’t survive the experiments, which included things like stepping on them or dropping rocks/dirt on them. This is why ants, aint.